Monday, July 22, 2013

Taiwan ( 29 Apr - 5 May 2013 ) ~ Day 6

On Day 6 morning, we left for Taipei after breakfast. We had been touring around Taiwan from North, East, South,West and now, back to the North again. Towards the end of our tour, more shopping were being arranged. Good for the ladies, but boring for the men. haha

The first stop in Taipei city was the infamous cake shops which claims to have plenty of franchises around Taiwan. Price are not cheap, but since we were already there, we just grab some goodies for the sake of trying.

Posing outside the cake's shop

Mum bought a box of Pineapple tarts (around RM30 ++ for 10 or 12 pieces) while I grabbed a box of Honey Cheesecakes. Only 10 slices, it cost roughly RM30.

Honey cheesecakes

Soft and fluffy cakes

Next, we had an early lunch. Our experienced tour guide advised that this restaurant are known to be pack with tourists. We had Mongolian BBQ + Asian food buffet. We were the 1st group to arrive and we can pick and choose our food slow and steady. haha....

The fun part of the Mongolian BBQ was, we chose our own ingredient and handed them over to the chef at the kitchen area for them to cook, and the chef will handed back to us a bowl of cooked meats.

My mixed bowl of uncooked vegies, meats and sauces

As no crowd yet, we don't even need to queue up at the kitchen area. However, about 30 minutes later, more and more tour groups arrived and soon, the restaurant was crowded.

Chef stir frying the raw ingredient

Once the food are cooked, the chef will used a very long chopstick to push the food into a clean bowl.

Done ! Scooping up with a long chopstick

Taa..daa.... my choice of vegies + meat + sauces. How the taste of the food will depends on what type of sauces you chose to be cook together. Besides than the Mongolian BBQ, there were assorted cooked Asian food at the buffet line and a pot of steamboat on our tables.

Yummy delicious

After our lunch, we proceeded to visit the next tourist attraction, Yangmingshan Flower Clock Tower. It is just a giant clock surrounded with flowers. Unfortunately, the management of this place did not built a higher platform for tourists to have a better view of the clock. Even I hold my camera up high, this is the best shot I get.

Yangmingshan Flower Clock

Nothing much to see at the clock tower and we left for the next attraction, Danshui Fishermen Wharf. The naughty tour guide joked, saying those traveled alone (without accompanied by husband) are forbidden to walked up this bridge alone. A bad omen will happened in the marriage. Nevertheless, my cousins and I still walked up despite our respective husbands were working hard back home. haha

Lover's Bridge @ Danshui Fisherman Wharf

All we saw was only beautiful scenery. This place was quite crowded.

Beautiful scenery

We then left for Danshui Old Street and traffics were very bad. This awesome tour guide, quickly suggested for us to take a train back to the Taipei town after visited Danshui Old Street in order to avoid the bad traffic. A treat from him again. Once the bus dropped us, the driver quickly made his way to one of the downtown's LRT station to wait for us.

MRT station @ Danshui Old Street

We doesn't need to worry about anything and just enjoyed our tour in peace.

People walking around the park

The street ahead is something like Taiwan Night market. There were lots of food stalls and also shops selling clothing, bags and souvenirs.

Danshui Old Street

As there were still some time, I bought a bottle of bubbles for XJ to keep her busy. haha

XJ blowing bubbles at the open space

Soon, it was time to leave the Danshui Old Street and everyone was on time to gather at the meeting up point. Our tour guide leaded us to the LRT station and as expected, the train was crowded. Nevertheless, we saved a lot of time by using the train. Our driver was already waiting for us at the designated LRT station downtown to bring us to the restaurant for our dinner. Each of us paid RM25/ pax as dinner was not pre-arranged according to our Itinerary.

After some discussions with the tour guide earlier, everyone agreed to have the Taiwanese soup dumpling (xiao long bao) for dinner.

We managed to try many different types of fillings and some were nice, while some not. Besides than xiao long bao, we were served with a big bowl of soup, rice and stir fried vegies. Again, we did not managed to finish the food. What a waste !

More xiao long bao with different fillings

Back to the hotel, we went to the nearby night market for more shopping. Every night market we visited were crowded with people. Just like our pasar malam, lots of mouth watering food were sold but we did not try any as we were stuffed till the brim with xiao long baos earlier !

the honey cheesecake looks very very nice!! i guess it must have been loaded with lots of goodness at that price, i always believe only Malaysian shops sell things at high price and yet not using premium ingredients, haha!!